CORRELATES AND SURVIVAL STRATEGIES OF STREET CHILDREN IN AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the correlates and survival strategies of street children in Akwa Ibom State. Six research question and 3 hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a survey research design. The population of the study consisted of all street children aged 5-18 years in Akwa Ibom State.  A sample size of 150 street children was chosen for the study from the target population using convenience sampling technique. The instrument titled ‘‘Correlates and Survival Strategies of Street Children Questionnaire (CSSCQ)’’ was used to gather data for the stud and the overall reliability coefficient of 0.85 was obtained which indicated that the instruments was deem adequate for the study. Various statistical method were used for data analysis. The research questions one, two, three, four and six were answered using simple percentage while Mean and Standard Deviation was used to answer research question five and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) were employed to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result obtained from the analysis revealed that the demographic characteristics of street children such as sex, age and level of education relate to streetism among children in Akwa Ibom State. Personal characteristics of parents/guardians the respondents used to live with such as parents sex, area of residence, parents’ age, education level and occupation relate with streetism among children. The respondent left their home to live in the street in Akwa Ibom State due to many reasons such as  father’s death, mother’s death, poverty, verbal abuse, lack of house, divorce, stigmatization of being a witch/wizard, stealing accusation, physical abuse and running away to evade punishment. The  result showed   that different categories of street children common in Akwa Ibom State are those that live permanently in the street, those who live  between street and home, children of the street family who live and work in the street and poor working children returning to their home at night. The results shows that the various factors that contribute to children living in the street in Akwa Ibom State are poverty which made the greatest contribution to streetism among children (mean =4.20, sd= 0.15) followed by physical abuse (mean=3.40, sd=0.12), parents neglect (mean=3.27,sd=0.12), friends (mean=3.21, sd= 0.10), driving away by parents(mean=3.20, sd=0.13) among others. The analysis further revealed that majority of the street children were survive through begging 30 (20%) out of 150 and scavenging 30(20%) out of 150. The finding indicated that 20(13.3%) out 150 of the street children were survive through hawking and 20(13.3%) out 150 of the street children were survive through picking pocket. 10(6.6%) were survive through male/female partner while 10(6.6%) were survive through scrap picking. The researcher recommend that more study on the correlates and survival strategies of street children in Akwa Ibom State should be conducted to establish more reasons contributing to streetism among children.